SIX MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS FOR ELECTIONS:

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BBV Update - 5 major stories breaking: Diebold backs down,

Landes makes a move, more

Mon, 6 Feb 2006 18:58:48 -0800 (PST)

update <update

update

 

 

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SIX MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS FOR ELECTIONS:

 

1) Diebold agrees to waive proprietary claims to GEMS database files

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/17793.html

 

This is big, and has nationwide implications as it can open up access

for Volusia County, San Diego County, DuPage County, and other

areas where questions have arisen on voting machine results.

 

Black Box Voting has been assisting the Alaska Democratic Party

in fighting for the right to obtain the Diebold " central tabulator "

database files.

 

The crux of the dispute: According to Alaska Democrats, official

results from Alaska's 2004 election are riddled with discrepancies

but the Alaska Division of Elections refused to turn over the

voting files to the Democrats, arguing that the data format belongs

to Diebold and can't be made public. Diebold told Alaska officials it

owns the " structure of the database. "

 

Today, Diebold caved and released its proprietary claims. The

formal letter from Diebold and the implications of this, which are

significant, can be read at the link above.

 

AND THIS:

 

2) Though you may already have heard that the US Supreme Court

is getting a case on electronic voting, you may not have seen the

particulars.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/17790.html

 

Pennsylvania's Lynn Landes is fighting the suit in the Supreme Court

as a citizen, by herself, with no lawyer (called a " Pro Se " case). She

follows in the footsteps of the founder of Pennsyvlania, William Penn,

who himself fought a Pro Se case which established the power of

citizen juries in English and American jurisprudence. Others who

fought and won Pro Se cases include Nelson Mandela and Emma

Goldman. Landes, in taking this on by herself, honors the Sufragettes,

who also fought a seemingly unwinnable battle. (Until they won.)

 

Landes has asked the Supreme Court to examine the important issue

of financial penalities invoked against those who file civil rights

cases.

She has also asked the court to allow her to have her voting civil rights

case heard. For an analysis of the important and creative issues in her

case, and to view the lawsuit itself, go to the link above, and also see

Lynn Landes's site: http://www.ecotalk.org/Lawsuit.htm

 

AND MORE: NEW DOCUMENTS

 

3) Important new information is coming out by way of transcripts and

depositions obtained by Black Box Voting. Grab some popcorn. These

documents are available here:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/17789.html

 

The documents, which include personal sworn testimony by 23-count

felon (for computer crimes) Jeffrey Dean, who ended up creating the

programs that process ballots and votes in much of the USA, are

filled with new information:

 

- Dean achieved remote access into several California counties for

the 2000 election. He did this to run a " VoteRemote " program, and

it involved transferring data back and forth from his office in a suburb

of Seattle.

 

- Dean sold vaporware to the state of Colorado

 

- In one election, on software for an absentee ballot counter that

Dean helped create, Sacramento County was unable to get

results out of the system until days after the election

 

- The documents contain testimony indicating that Jeffrey Dean

began programming components for King County absentee balloting

while STILL IN PRISON.

 

- A great deal of new information is provided about how Dean got

involved in elections, how Global Election Systems took over Dean's

company (Spectrum), and then Diebold took over Global and Spectrum,

and other information of historical significance.

 

- The documents also contain copies of checks forged by Jeffrey Dean.

 

Even Black Box Voting has not read all of these documents yet. They

are hot off the scanner and full of surprises.

 

AND THIS: AN IMPORTANT ISSUE THAT HASN'T BEEN ADDRESSED:

 

4) What protects your personal information once it enters e-elections?

 

here are the kinds of databases that are and will be created with new

e-elections technology:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/17778.html

 

- Massive computerized statewide voter registration databases

- Voter identification cards and voter biometrics

- VoteRemote-style electronic signature databases

- Electronic poll check-in databases

- And proposed by some companies, databases for electronic

verification of your vote

 

Are there any laws at all that protect this kind of information from

being

purchased by companies like Choicepoint, one of the nation's primary

resellers of personal information to homeland security, law enforcement

agents, employers, insurance agencies and direct marketing groups?

 

Choicepoint, according to the Atlanta Constitution and the Associated

Press, has purchased voter registration databases before. It has a

$60 million contract with the Department of Homeland Security, and

was one of the first clients to sign up with lobbyist " The Ashcroft Group "

-- run by former attorney general John Ashcroft.

 

Within 24 hours of publishing this story, which is about the issues that

remain to be addressed in the ethics and regulations of data-brokering

for elections information, the president of Choicepoint called Bev Harris.

 

In this surprising conversation, he revealed that his wife is on the board

of directors for VoteTrustUSA. He said he did not believe this needs to

be disclosed.

 

He pointed out that Black Box Voting erred in the article iin saying

there

were ties with Choicepoint and Equifax, and Black Box Voting issued a

correction in the story to that effect.

 

For more information on Choicepoint, see EPIC.org:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/choicepoint/

 

5) This story was broken by BradBlog, and it's important:

 

A court has ordered a re-do of an election in Ohio, due to Diebold touch

screens recording too many votes.

 

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002379.htm

 

6) Volusia County poll tapes are up here:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/15675.html

 

Black Box Voting found numerous irregularities in the poll tapes from

Volusia County's 2004 election. The images of the tapes are now

posted, along with a list of the anomalies.

 

Among the problems:

 

Precinct 215: Multiple anomalies including mismatched vote counts

 

Precinct 303: A white rectangle appears in the zero tape and the

public defender's race doesn't appear on zero tape

 

Precinct 305: A documented case of time travel? Reported date

on voting machine is 18,000 years in the future.

 

Precinct 417: Doozy of a time error on results report. Poll workers

noticed it, signed off on it, thinking the clock stamp on the results

report was about an hour off. However, the clock was actually

nearly 13 hours off. In fact, it had not advanced even one second

during the entire day while the voting machine was counting ballots.

This gets into a tech discussion of CPUs and clocks, and is very

difficult to explain.

 

Precinct 527: Race # 60 recorded " zero " votes for both ballot

choices (all other races did record votes). The long report shows

no undervotes.

 

About a dozen precincts have " memory card error " on the tape.

Tapes for dozens of precincts reveal that the machines were

not tested before the election.

Several time discrepancies, one zero report was run at 11 p.m.

with results appearing at midnight.

 

* * * * *

 

Black Box Voting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501c(3) elections

watchdog group funded solely by citizen donations. Black Box

Voting does not accept any grants for corporations with any

interest whatsoever in computerized systems, databases, or

elections systems.

 

In fact, Black Box Voting recently turned down a $25,000 grant

because it appeared to come with strings attached. This is rather

excruciating, but we feel it is necesary.

 

If you support our work and our nonpartisan approach, you may

express your support with your credit card here:

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